Thread: Need some advice. Motor hard to turn over after new identical bearings.

I'm going to try and cut to the chase here.

Opened the motor up to change a few things and decided to replace bearings & rings while it's open. The motor had ACL Race STD bearings in from the previous build. They were fine, but I replaced them anyways. With ACL Race STD again.

Now the motor is ridiculously hard to turn over. I can turn it with a big torque wrench but it takes some effort. I used (possibly a bit much) redline assemlby lube.

With just the mains the crank spun easily by hand. The minute I tighten the big ends it starts getting hard to turn. By the time they're all torqued down it's near impossible.

A lot of time between pulling it apart and putting it together so I wasn't sure about 2 things:

1) Which way around do the rod caps go? Do the bearing tabs of the rod and the rod-cap meet (like the mains) or are they on opposite sides of the rod.
2) Does it matter which side of the rod faces the front and the back of the motor with aftermarket rods? Eagle in this instance.

The motor is in the car and the starter can't even turn it over. So clearly something isn't right. If I have the rods installed correctly, I'm guessing the bearings are somehow off, and I think I need to get the HX bearings with extra clearance.

Try Plasti-gage to measure the bearing clearances.

Anyone got answers to the 2 questions I mentioned?

I think I may have the conrod caps wrong way around. I have the bearing tabs at opposite sides iirc. Gonna pull the oil pan and have a look this week end.

you should have marked them buddy they are line honed when assembled the correct way now that they may be backwards you could be crushing the bearings if the hole is now out of round

Main bearing cap orientation #1 towards balancer side and #5 flywheel side. Tabs are opposite from each other and block and cap have notches for the bearing tabs. I wouldn't think the aftermarket rods would matter which way, stock rods with oilers probably would though.